


Versions of reality

by itsallAvengers



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Avengers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, M/M, Memory Loss, Self-Esteem Issues, Temporary Amnesia, The Avengers Are Good Bros, This is like 2012 avengers except with Sam and Bucky involved because I said so, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 04:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17842712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallAvengers/pseuds/itsallAvengers
Summary: while held captive by HYDRA, Tony's memories of Iron Man are stolen from him. He doesn't know how to get them back, and with every passing second, he becomes more and more aware of how expendable he truly is when he doesn't have the appeal of the suit to keep him afloat.Just how long is it going to take for the team to get bored of him, now that he has nothing to offer them?





	Versions of reality

**Author's Note:**

> commission for Anonymous, who asked, essentially, for a lot of tony whump and an exploration into the Many Issues our favourite Genius has :') I hope that this is what you were after!

Tony stared down at the data on his tablet with a deep frown and a worry-bitten lip. On the screen, scans of his own brain and closeups of his limbic system, his hypothalamus, all the weird mushy stuff that Bruce had been explaining to him earlier but Tony had been a little too exhausted to listen to, all planted themselves on the tablet’s surface in a freaky sort of clarity. It sparked some bits up in a worrying red, and he read the captions with a deepening sense of foreboding. He hated getting brain scans for this exact reason.

He had a feeling that over the course of the next few weeks, things were going to get pretty fucking difficult.

Outside the door of his hospital room, he could hear Steve chatting with one of the nurses outside. Since Tony had been pulled out of that HYDRA base and brought back to New York, that mother hen had barely left his side for a minute. Tony thought Steve was overreacting a little bit: he’d only been in captivity for a week, after all. Compared to _some_ stints he’d done in terrorist camps, that was small potatoes. Tony was fine. They hadn’t even tortured him that much, all things considered. Just some electroshock therapy and… And whatever it was that they’d done to his brain.

Which would be fixed. Obviously. Bruce had said it would go back to normal with time; that they hadn’t kept up the reconditioning long enough for it to be permanent, and so Tony just had to wait. It would get better, so Tony had nothing to worry about.

He scrolled down, coming to a picture of the Iron Man suit, and then winced in pain as the image sent something throbbing at the back of his head.

The scientists at SHIELD weren’t entirely sure what HYDRA had done to him. Tony himself barely remembers the entire period, other than it being a pain-fuzzed blur full of screams and misery. You know, the usual shit, torture was bad, etc etc etc- but what he did know came from what the Avengers had told him. They’d been tracking him ever since he’d been taken on the way back from work, and when they’d eventually managed to locate him to some bumfuck town on the border of Pennsylvania, they’d found him locked into some sort of… machine. A headset had been wrapped around his head, and wires had fed in through his temples and directly into the machinery.

In all honesty, Tony was glad that he didn’t remember any of that.

They’d managed to pull him out of it, though, and from then on, things were a little clearer in his head. He remembers Natasha on one side of him and Steve on the other, holding him up and asking him if he could walk. Remembers asking what they’d done. Remembers the anger on Bruce’s face as he’d told Tony that they didn’t know yet, but they’d find out.

Which they did. Less then one minute later, actually, when one of them mentioned getting JARVIS to fly Tony out in the suit, and he’d found himself doubled up in pain at the very thought of his red and gold armour. The pain in his head had been damn near unbearable, and although he’d tried to push through it, the more he’d thought of it the more it had hurt, until he’d been practically slumped in Steve’s arms, damn near unconscious from the throbbing at the back of his head.

Later, when he’d been carried back to the jet and brought home, they realised it was because of HYDRA.

“A cognitive block,” Bruce had said, and then when Tony had asked what the fuck that meant, he’d just smiled tiredly and told him the name had been invented about five minutes ago. “HYDRA were… there was a lot of testing equipment in the base when we got there. We think that you were their guinea pig, what with your brain being so…”

“Desirable?” Tony had helped drily, and Bruce had just nodded.

“Essentially,” he’d admitted, “Tony- they’ve blocked off all information about the Iron Man armour. It’s like they’ve managed to target the specific neurons responsible for all the memory functions and just… shut them down. And then to protect their work, they’ve made sure when you try and access those memories, it triggers a pain response. Although I imagine you’ve come to the same conclusion by now, right?”

Tony had nodded once, curt. He’d been trying, ever since being pulled out of that hellhole, to remember what his suit even looked like. But he couldn’t. Not unless it was shown to him in a picture, in which case it just gave him an immediate migraine and then slipped straight out of his memory as soon as his eyes had left it. If Tony hadn’t been so distraught about that, he would have commended the scientists responsible. He’d never heard of something like that being done before.

It was incredible. And terrifying.

“Can we reverse it?” He’d asked, pretending as if his voice hadn’t been wavering with each word. “Please tell me I can get it all back, Bruce.”

But Bruce had only shrugged non-committedly. “I- I don’t know,” he’d admitted, “I should think so. Whatever they were doing with you, it wouldn’t have been for a long enough time to stick. We’ve studied what happened with Bucky and his conditioning- not even seventy years managed to remove his past life completely. If we’re using him as our reference, then hopefully this should fade. But I don’t know, Tony. All of this is hypothetical.”

Tony had nodded, letting the hope sit comfortably in his stomach and keep him from doing something terrible, like crying. Ever since then, he’d been sat on his hospital bed looking through all the notes and scans and weird neuroscience terminology, and simply trying to make sense of it all.

“Leave your face like that for too long and it’ll stick,” someone said in front of him, and he glanced up with a weary smile at Steve as the man slipped in through the door.

“Yeah, so I’ve been told,” he responded, making an effort to release the tension in his forehead. Steve looked him over analytically, before pursing his lips and dropping the jello cup down on Tony’s lap. Tony grinned. “Thanks.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Same as I was five minutes ago,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “shitty, but alive, I guess. Silver linings.”

Steve cracked a smile that was tinted with a little worry, and he sat down in the chair next to Tony just as the door opened once more and Bucky swept into the room, eyes going immediately to Tony. He’d been away on a mission ever since Tony had gone missing, so this was the first time Bucky had actually seen him post-capture. For a second, his gaze was concerned and his hands clenched, but then he made a conscious effort to try calm himself. “Did they kill you?” He asked eventually, raising an eyebrow.

Tony glanced down at his hands as Steve reprimanded Bucky from beside him. Their methods of comfort were rather stark in their contrast; Steve preferred to be motherly and gentle, whereas Bucky was more of a ‘get up and walk it off’ kinda guy. “Think I made it out in one piece this time, Buckaroo,” he assured with a small grin.

Bucky huffed, and Tony watched his body relax a little as he stepped forward. “Tasha told me you got mind-mushed,” he continued, waving Steve away when the man shot him a glare, “Oh give it up, Stevie, he knows what’s happenin.”

Tony huffed, laying his head back down on the bed. “They’ve taken Iron Man away from me,” he said, swallowing down the lump in his throat and smiling, “they fucking…I can’t even _think_ about it. It’s like I’m you guys, like I’m looking at it through someone else’s eyes. I mean, scientifically, it’s incredible, but personally? It sucks.” He waved his hands through the air and then shook his head, turning back to Bucky. “So yeah. Mind-mushed probably fits the bill.”

“We’ll sort it,” Steve told him with a nod of his head, eyes determined, “we’ll get Iron Man back, Tony. I promise.”

Bucky nodded firmly, leaning against the wall and shoving his hands into his pockets. “We need that Tin Can, after all,” he said, “who’s gonna cover my ass from above without him?”

Tony nodded, glancing back down to the tablet full of information in front of him. Scans of his own brain stared back up at him, bright and disconcerting. He fisted his hands against the sheets and clenched his jaw.

Brains were simple, right?

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

He refused to stay in the hospital after the third day. Apart from his Brain Fucking, nothing else much was wrong with him, and a hospital was a dangerous place to be for someone as bored and inventive as Tony Stark could get. The team made a few half-assed attempts to keep him in, but were fully aware they were in vain, and eventually they just let Natasha go start the car as the rest of the team escorted him out of the building.

Of course, he got home and the migraines immediately started up again.

Bits of the armour were littered on the counter. Little drawings, newspaper clippings and photos were hung on the walls, reminding him but doing nothing to actually help him _remember_. The team had to spend a good ten minutes cleaning everything out while Tony just waited miserably in the corridor, thinking over everything he was going to have to stop doing for a while. He couldn’t tinker on the armour, he didn’t even know how it worked any more. He couldn’t respond to calls or visit hospitals in the suit, not until he actually worked out how to pilot it again. Couldn’t train with Thor or go over routines with Steve.

Essentially, he was going to be useless until he got his memories back.

“You can come in now,” Clint’s voice permeated his thoughts and he glanced up, smiling wearily at the man as he stuck his head around the corner of the door. “We’ve Tony-proofed the whole floor.”

“Right,” Tony nodded, stepping forward and trying not to feel like an embarrassing burden, “thanks.”

It went like that for most of the day. To prevent him from accidentally blacking out with pain, the team attempted to clear the whole fucking tower of everything vaguely Iron-Man looking, until he eventually got sick of them holding out their hands before he walked into rooms and just told them to leave it. It had subsided a little since the first time they’d noticed it happening, and now it simply brought on a migraine, which he dealt with at least once every two damned weeks anyway. He could handle it.

That night, he holed himself up in the (thoroughly cleaned out) workshop and then worked back through all the data that Bruce had sent him on his condition, determined to try and figure something out. It had been less than twenty-four hours, and he was already sick of it. And when he looked over to his friends and their pained faces, pinched and tight whenever they had to stand up and move something else out of the way, he couldn’t help but feel as if they were too. It had to be irritating, after all, looking after him like he was a goddamned child.

He’d sort it out. He just needed to get his head around what had happened to him first.

The night passed him by in a blur, spent talking to neuroscientists and going back through all the notes they had on Bucky and his HYDRA programming. The next time he looked up, it was 7am and Steve was knocking on his door with a sandwich and a concerned expression. “Have you even been to sleep?” He asked as soon as Tony buzzed him in.

Tony just hummed and waved a hand. “Don’t need it,” he said, which was true. He was working on a research-high, and it was keeping his body and mind constantly moving. “You about to go on your run?”

Steve made a displeased noise in the back of his throat, but then walked over and slid the plate onto Tony’s desk. “Yeah,” he said, “but I’ll be back soon. Please don’t get kidnapped while I’m gone.”

Tony couldn’t help but laugh, turning in his chair and looking up at Steve softly. The other man looked back down at him, the same expression mirrored on his face. Then he patted Tony’s shoulder softly, thumb running quickly over the bare skin of his neck before slipping off again. Tony ignored the tingle it left- he’d had a lot of practise in that field.

“Try getting a bit of sleep at some point,” Steve told him with his stupid earnest face that made Tony feel things he shouldn’t feel for a team-mate. “It’s been a long week for you.”

Tony rolled his eyes and then turned back to his desk. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” he responded as Steve’s footsteps began to back up through the workshop, and he heard Steve’s huff of laughter start up behind him, making something warm light up under his sternum. He loved making Steve laugh.

About an hour later, Tony finally decided to take Steve’s advice and go engage in some human activities such as eating breakfast. He made his way up to the communal floor, hoping that one of the team might have already made something he could pick at. Luckily, his hopes were fulfilled: Sam had dropped by and made pancakes for the whole team, and Thor had been kind enough to hold off from stealing Tony’s portion. The smell alone made his mouth water, and soon he’d sat himself between Clint and Nat as he scoffed down at his pile, comfortable and content.

Or at least, he _was_ \- right up until the Avengers alarm rang out across the room.

With a groan, all of them jumped to their feet. Steve, who had returned from his run by that point, looked up to the ceiling. “JARVIS, what’ve we got?”

“The Wrecking Crew appear to have begun a raid on Wall Street. They’re currently in the National City Bank, and reports are coming in saying they’ve got hostages.”

Everyone groaned again, harder that time. Wrecking Crew were the fucking _worst_. “Okay, everyone suit up,” Steve called out sharply, throwing his newspaper down- then stopped when he saw Tony beginning to move with the rest of them. “Uh, Tony- what are you doing?”

Tony paused, feeling the gazes of his team fall on him. Only then did he remember that he was now without the armour. But… he could still be an asset without it, surely. “I’m coming with you,” he said defensively, turning to the rest of the team.

All of them frowned. “Tony, I thought it was pretty obvious that you’re benched for now,” Natasha told him, and Tony blinked in shock, feeling the way those words ricocheted painfully around his brain.

“What?” He asked with an incredulous face, “guys, I know I can’t use the suit right now, but-“

“Tony,” Steve said exasperatedly, beginning to move past him again, “we don’t have time to discuss this right now. You’re not going to be useful without the suit and I won’t let you go out and get beat up by Piledriver when you can’t defend yourself.” He paused, turning back to Tony with a slightly apologetic face. “We have to go. Just… just stay here, and we’ll discuss it later, okay?”

Tony stared at him, mouth opening and closing wordlessly as the rest of the team began to jog out of the room and over to the armory. The words rung in his ears, like Steve had screamed them out to him.

_You’re not useful without the suit._

Suddenly and without warning, reality clicked into place with a startling clarity. This whole thing was a far bigger problem than what he’d previously realised. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t clocked onto it sooner.

Losing Iron Man wasn’t just irritating. Losing Iron Man was going to risk his position on the team.

He froze where he stood, watching the last person exit the room until he was stood rigid in the empty kitchen. The fear was starting to crawl up his throat as he became aware of the real consequences of all this- Iron Man was what had gotten him into the team in the first place, what everyone had been drawn to. That was the real asset, The Avengers’ heavy hitter, their aerial support. Without Iron Man, it wouldn’t take long for them all to come to the realisation that Tony himself didn’t have much to offer.

Oh, fuck.

_You’re not useful._

A sharp breath sucked its way in through clenched teeth and he blinked rapidly, brain firing off a million miles a minute as he did the math. On average, they were called out for various missions about once every week. If Tony didn’t sort himself in a month, that would be four callouts he’d miss. Four times they wouldn’t have him on the field, but then have to deal with him back at home after it anyway. And he knew… yeah, they liked him, but he was pretty sure they liked Iron Man better. Without that on his side… how long would it take for them to get bored of the man underneath that?

_Useless._

He shut his eyes and then told himself to stop his current train of thought. They’d had discussions about this before. Tony knew that it was just… it was just in his head. Mostly.

He was overthinking it. Steve hadn’t meant it like that. Obviously, he had a point. Tony couldn’t fight like Natasha or shoot like Clint or strangle people with his metal arm like Bucky. Without the suit, he wasn’t a hero. Not that Steve had been implying that, either. Probably.

Goddamn it, he just needed to get his head working properly again. Once the memories came back, he didn’t even have to worry about whatever it was that his stupid mind had decided to latch onto. Maybe he just needed to rip the bandaid off. Work through the Cognitive block and try force his way through the pain until he reached the other end.

He palmed a hand over his face. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Keep me updated on their status,” he asked wearily, forcing himself to move back in the direction of the workshop. He kept his mind empty of thoughts right up until he’d sat himself gently onto the chair by his desk, and then he placed his hands against his temples, shut his eyes, and tried desperately to pull up the schematics of the armour in his head.

Nothing. Just a throbbing pain when he delved too hard. He winced, pulling back and then huffing irritably. _Come on,_ he scolded, _just fucking do it._

But no matter how hard he tried, nothing came up. The most he got was the briefest of flashes, like images through a cloud of smoke, hazy and unable to be properly grasped. His hands clenched down hard against the side of the table and he felt sweat form at the back of his neck from the energy he was exerting, but to no avail. It wouldn’t fucking come.

_Useless useless useless useless-_

“Oh God, shut up,” he spat at himself as he slammed his hands against the table and then leaned back on his chair. His head was fucking killing him, and he stood angrily from the desk and headed over to the liquor cabinet on the other side of the room. Taking out the closest bottle, he flicked off the cap and then took a large swig, gasping as it burned its way down his throat.

In his head, he heard the voice of his girlfriend from back when he was twenty, looking at him in surprise when he’d said no to marrying her. They’d known eachother for two fucking months, but hey- being the next of kin of a Stark paid pretty well, so she’d taken her shot. Then, when he’d rejected her, she’d left the next day. That was it. He’d fulfilled his use, he’d bought her the expensive rolex and the Gucci dress that she’d always wanted, but once that’d dried up, there was no point in keeping him around.

He clenched his jaw and took another swig, before JARVIS announced that the team had successfully managed to contain the situation and were headed back on the jet. Tony pushed all the stupid self-deprecating shit from his mind and focused instead on his team, the ones who had just been in a fight with a bunch of psycho criminals. He was being fucking ridiculous.

The kitchen was quiet as he waited for them with his cup of coffee, but it only took five minutes for them to come and fill the gap that they’d left an hour ago. They trudged back in, limping slightly but with wide, adrenaline-fuelled smiles on all of their faces as they laughed together. Tony watched them and smiled, ignoring the way his throat tightened at the sight of them. Didn’t seem like they’d missed him much.

_God, don’t be fucking pathetic._

“Hey,” he said, “are you all okay? How did it go?”

Thor beamed over at him, patting him on the back. “Surprisingly well! The Wrecking Crew are fools, but they certainly offer a strange form of entertainment for a Tuesday morning.”

“Watching them try and coordinate the taking-over of the entirety of Wall Street is always funny,” Clint agreed with a nod, dumping his bow on the counter and then hopping up onto the counter to grab the cereal box.

“You miss me?” Tony said lightly, knowing it was dumb as soon as he’d said it.

But the team just shrugged. “No, don’t worry,” Natasha told him with a pat against the shoulder, “Colonel Rhodes flew in and helped out with the War Machine armour.”

“That guy’s got a mean aim,” Bucky grumbled as he jimmied a screwdriver into his arm with a frown, “I pissed him off and he nearly blew my damned head off from a hundred yards away.”

Tony felt something cold settle in his gut as they talked amicably around him. Something bitter. They’d brought War Machine in- as they goddamn should’ve, obviously- and hadn’t missed Tony. And Rhodey… Rhodey was probably a better Iron Man than he was anyway. He followed the rules and knew the right plays and he didn’t piss around on the comms. Steve would probably appreciate that. If Rhodey stayed on while Tony was off, they were all probably going to realise how irritating working with Tony really was.

He hadn’t even thought about it before, but the suit really had been his safety net this whole time. The thing that kept all his friends placated, kept them civil. They probably _did_ like Tony, realistically speaking- but how much of it was to do with that fact that they were obligated to? And how much would that amicability lessen once they came to the conclusion that they didn’t have to worry about Iron Man leaving the team anymore, because they’d already got a replacement?

“Tony?” Someone asked, and he looked up to see Bruce watching him, voice quiet as he added, “are you okay?”

He froze, but then pulled himself together and nodded. “Yeah, course,” he said with a smile, “head’s hurting a little bit. Been thinking of the armor too much.”

Bruce frowned. “Try not to,” he said, placing his hand on Tony’s shoulder, “it’s going to come back with time, but until then, we’ll be fine without you. You don’t need to worry.”

Wow. That sure made him feel better. He didn’t fucking _have_ time- if he was useless without the suit, it wouldn’t be long before they decided he was just useless altogether. Rhodey was a better Iron Man than him, true, but Tony was far too selfish to give it up. He needed to fix himself before it was too late, and they all realised how much better things probably were without him.

God. Objectively, he knew he was being irrational- the team had been a unit for years by this point, and they’d never… they’d never seemed to show any lingering hostility toward him. It was fucking stupid to think that they’d just leave him as soon as he stopped being able to use the armour, but-

 

_‘What do you mean- I thought you told me you could speak Japanese?’ Howard hissed at him, his face suddenly dropping its pleasant exterior as he looked at Tony with a face of fury. They’d been travelling together, Tony just thirteen years old, feeling so happy to just finally be hanging out with his dad and, even better, having his dad be pleasant to him, smile and laugh with him for once._

_‘I can!’ Tony had said desperately, trying to salvage the conversation, get back on his father’s good side. Things had been going so well. ‘I’m not quite fluent yet, but I can learn, I promise-‘_

_‘Well it’s not like you’re going to learn a whole fucking language in under sixteen hours, Anthony- that’s the only reason I brought you along. You were supposed to translate for our investors!’ Howard’s lip was curled in disappointment, and Tony felt humiliation settle in his stomach as he’d looked up at his father._

_‘But… you said you wanted to spend time with me,’ he responded weakly, ‘you said you wanted- you wanted to try and patch things up, talk-‘_

_‘Oh, don’t be a fucking idiot, Tony,’ Howard sneered and turned away, running a hand through his hair as he’d walked toward the phone on the desk, ‘I need to call a translator. Make your own way home.’_

_Tony stared, wide-eyed. ‘Home? I don’t… how am I supposed to-‘_

_‘your passport’s in the suitcase and I’m sure you’ll be able to work out how to catch a plane, seeing as you’re so fucking smart. I don’t have time to coddle you, Jesus. Just get out of my face’._

_With a small sniffle and a quick wipe of his eyes, Tony did._

 

That couldn’t happen again. Tony… Tony needed to remain useful. He’d learned how to speak fluently in Japanese by the next week after that debacle, so he could do this.

He just needed to show them that he was still an asset. Then they’d stay.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

That night, he pulled up his to-do list.

New suit for Natasha. Fix Thor’s hammer strap, because the metal might be the strongest thing in the universe, but the leather was, unfortunately, just leather. Clint’s bow was getting worn too, so that’d need some work. And the whole team needed some sort of filtration system that they could carry around with them, because right now Tony was the only one protected from gas-attacks and that just wasn’t good enough.

Instead of sleeping, he got to work.

It was what he was good at. Innovation. Clever little ideas that other people didn’t think of, that made people smile and gasp and wonder how he did it. He was leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world and he knew it. Now he just needed to remind his team of that.

 _‘It’s not that you can’t build it, Tony’ Ty tells him, a hand stroking comfortingly across his cheek, ‘it’s just that… well,_ everyone _can build it. I know that you’re smart, but at the end of the day, you don’t have much to offer that another genius can’t give.’_

That wasn’t true. That was a toxic relationship from twenty goddamned years ago and it wasn’t fucking true.

Except, well- Bruce could probably do all this and more. There were some incredible minds over at SHIELD, too, despite what Tony said- he’d heard of a team called Fitzsimmons and knew they were some of the brightest minds of the century. And Hank Pym, that guy was affiliated with SHIELD too- if the Avengers needed to, they could probably convince him to come in.

He looked back down at the blueprint for Clint’s bow, feeling something traitorously hot and prickly behind his eyes before he shoved those thoughts away forcibly. Right now, the team had him. And all he had to be was good enough. That was it.

He worked through the night. His body ached and his eyes began to droop halfway through, so he marched over to the coffee machine on the other side of the room and filled his body with enough caffeine to keep him buzzing for the next few hours. Then he got back to his schematics, and didn’t think of every time that he’d been thrown away as soon as he stopped being of use to people. He didn’t think about Sunset, who had dated him for months and then left with his stolen designs that he’d been stupid enough to trust her with, didn’t think about all the ‘friends’ at MIT who’d leeched off his money for free drinks and cool clothes when they went out shopping. He didn’t think of the people who’d scarpered as soon as Tony admitted to maybe wanting something more than casual sex, because maybe Tony could give a good roll in the hay, but no one actually wanted to stay for _him_.

He didn’t think about any of that. Instead, he worked.

And so what, really, if the Avengers only needed him for his armour? It still meant they _needed_ him, and Tony… well, he’d take that. If it meant that they’d stay, he could take it. Once all of this was over and is memories were back, he’d probably stop thinking about it all together. Shove it back down into that dark little hole where it belonged, never to be heard of again.

By the time the team had all woken up to go for breakfast, Tony had a stack of new things for all of them. He nodded to himself in approval and then brushed his hair off his face, standing up on stiff limbs to go and join them all. They should like all this- at the very least, they’d appreciate the work he’d done. Gathering all the bits and pieces up into his arms, he scurried out of the workshop and then tapped the buttons on the elevator with his toe, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet as he waited to get taken up to the communal floor. The team were all sat in sleepy silence around the counter while Bucky cooked something in the frying pan, but they all looked up at him and smiled as he entered. Tony smiled back, his heart warming. “Santa’s arrived.”

Heads perked up at the prospect of gifts, all their grins widening. “Oooooooh, gimme gimme gimme,” Clint said as he hopped off the counter and scurried over to him, hands outstretched. “Are they fresh arrows I see?”

“You bet they are,” Tony responded, walking further in and then dumping everything onto the table. The team crowded around, hands reaching out to grab their assigned stuff. He watched Natasha’s eyes sparkle happily at the new suit, felt the pat on the back and heartfelt thanks Thor gave him when he pulled out his new reinforced strap from the little mound of inventions. He spotted Steve’s eyes on him and quickly delved down into the mound, pulling out a USB stick from the bottom. “New training program for you, Cap, don’t worry, I didn’t leave you out.”

But Steve just frowned. “Another sleepless night then?” He asked, concern filtering through, “Tony-“

“Oh, don’t start,” Tony interrupted with a wave of his hand. He refused to let Steve’s worry break through the cloud of happiness that he was currently feeling from the knowledge that all his friends were happy because of him, were glad that he’d done this for them. See? He _was_ necessary to the team. He _was_ needed. Last night… it’d just been a little blip, a stupid thought spiral. The team still wanted him around, obviously.

Steve sighed but said nothing, bumping their shoulders together. “Thank you,” he said earnestly, “and for the record, I’m sorry for snapping at you yesterday. I didn’t mean-“

“No no, it’s fine,” Tony told him reassuringly, looking down and pulling his face into his best rendition of a smile, “but don’t worry. I’ll get Iron Man back to me soon and then it won’t even be an issue. Promise.”

Steve just looked at him with his big blue eyes, an indiscernible emotion there. Tony watched his fingers flex by his side, like he was resisting the urge to raise them. He settled for a smile instead. “Don’t overstretch yourself,” he said, “just… let your brain work itself out on its own, kay? Give yourself a well-earned break.”

“Talking of well-earned breaks,” Sam piped up from behind them, and they both turned as he slid his phone across the table, “they’re the showing times for Fast and Furious. You’re all under legal obligation to come- team night.”

Tony looked at the screen dubiously. He’d been thinking of maybe getting a bit of sleep for the first time in a good few days, seeing as he was starting to see double and couldn’t exactly stand on his feet all that well. He opened his mouth to decline, but then stopped himself just a second before, suddenly thinking about it. He wanted to spend time with his team, and seeing as he was no longer an active duty avenger, the times when they would be able to hang out together were going to be much less, if any at all. Like Sam had said- ‘Team Bonding’ required you to, you know, be _in_ the team. And if he no longer had that going for him… well, it seemed unlikely they’d want to just hang out with him anyway.

He could go a few more hours without sleep. It was fine. “I’m in,” he said with a grin around the room as everyone else agreed and then argued over showing times. They eventually settled on going to the soonest one, and by the time they’d all squished themselves into the AvengerVan (Clint’s terminology, _not_ Tony’s, thank you very much) Tony had pretty much completely forgotten the feeling of displacement amongst the team. It was easy, when they were all together like that, getting into squabbles every five minutes about the most irrelevant shit you could think of. Steve was sat next to him, shooting those little glances and soft smiles his way every time Tony caught him looking, and then across on the other side of the van Tony was trying to avoid Clint and Natasha’s knowing winks and sniggers. They were children and honestly, Tony was far above that. He stuck his tongue out and shot them both the bird when Steve wasn’t looking, but that was only in retaliation, obviously.

Things had been going fine, really. Until Tony started letting himself goddamn _think_ again.

The movie had been okay- Tony could admit, he’d slept through the first half of it- but afterward, they’d decided to go out and get something to eat, which had been fine, Tony had been starving after all. But it was then when he started realising what a lot of their conversations were centred around.

“God, I still can’t believe that the Wrecking Crew actually thought they could take the _entirety of fucking Wall Street hostage_ without having planned more than two days in advance,” Sam said, wiping tears from his eyes as he shook his head, “did you hear Piledriver yelling about how they were unstoppable?”

Everyone laughed. “Wasn’t he chained to a lamp-post at the time?” Natasha asked with an amused cock of her eyebrow, looking out of the window.

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

“Listen, at the very least, it’s a way to spend a Tuesday morning that’s more fun than Cap’s training routines,” Clint said with a shrug, tossing a couple of peanuts into his mouth. “And hey, with War Machine there point about seventeen different weapons their way, I’m pretty sure most of them peed themselves a little bit, which was an added bonus.”

Tony listened to them all silently, trying to find a way to add something to the conversation. But then he thought about how that would probably be rude and obvious and kind of pathetic, and he didn’t want any of the team to get pissed. Anyway, the only way he could add anything was by changing the subject to something he was involved in, which was just selfish, really.

He kept his mouth shut and chewed on his fries, sitting silently as all his friends talked around him- about the fight, about the upcoming mission in Montreal that Tony was also not invited to- things that, in any normal circumstance, Tony would probably have been able to interject with or at least contribute to. Except now he felt as if he was intruding.

Did they even want him to be there, or had this just been pity? How many times must this have happened without him even noticing it? God- all of them, they actually had things in common with each other, didn’t they? They were soldiers and spies and actual heroes, most of them having come from nothing and worked their way up. They had a bond with each other, all of them. Natasha had Clint- the two were almost inseparable- and then Bucky, whom she shared an obvious history with and was clearly devoted to. Bucky had her and Steve- another pair with a lifelong history, inseparable, brothers in arms. They’d fought the war together. Steve had traversed the globe in an attempt to bring him home. And then there was Sam- he was close with pretty much all of them, bonding easily with shared experience of service, and was just a nice enough person to fit in snugly almost immediately. Then Thor and Bruce came as a pair too- the scientist and the God, both of them finding a strangely beautiful harmony in one another. As a unit, they all came together and just _fit_.

And then, on the outskirts of it all, was Tony. The stuck up billionaire asshole, the one everyone tended to roll their eyes at. He was too loud, too selfish. They put up with him most days because they had to. Steve… well, maybe Steve liked him a little more than the rest, but at the end of the day he had Bucky. He had Sam. He had the rest of the team, and there wasn’t much room after all that for Tony.

Without Iron Man, he had nothing else to give them that they thought was worthwhile. No one had even looked his way in ten minutes and fifteen seconds, when normally, when he had the appeal of the armour on-side, he would be fully included in the conversation.

He tapped his fingers nervously against the table. This was so fucking stupid. He was being so fucking stupid.

God, he just had to stop pissing around and work on getting his head fixed. Removing the stupid cognitive block. He desperately needed Iron Man back, before he lost them all for good. Maybe it was in his head, but they just… they didn’t seem interested. If this bullshit carried on any longer he was going to start losing them for good. They were going to see him for what he really was: someone not worth having around. And if they’d already seen War Machine in action, then he barely stood a hope in hell even if he did manage to retrieve his memories of the suit. Rhodey was just… a better fit. It was clear from the way they all spoke of him; with such high regard and admiration in their voices.

Rhodey was a hero. Tony was an asshole in a metal suit who flew around pretending to be one of them.

“Tony?” Steve turned to him, looking in concern as Tony stood abruptly from the table, trying not to sway when his vision went blurry for a moment. He was so fucking tired. His head hurt from thinking about the Goddamned armour too much.

“Sorry,” he blurted, suddenly feeling all the eyes turn to him. He felt as if they were judging him. Would they talk about him once he left? Probably. He’d been acting weird lately and he knew it. “I just had a really fucking good idea. I gotta shoot off and make a few calls, see if I can bring it to life.”

“Oh, what is it?” Bruce asked, leaning forward and looking up at him.

“Work stuff,” Tony lied easily, “not anything that’d interest you guys. ”

Everyone rolled their eyes- something they did a lot and something Tony had never really minded until now. Everything was coming in through a different, inescapable light. _They’re annoyed at me,_ the voice started up in his head, _look at them, they’re irritated._

“Ah, super secret genius stuff,” Bucky said with a sage nod, “fair enough. Go change the world, Tony. We’ll see you when we get back.”

Was Bucky mocking him? Tony couldn’t tell. “Sorry,” he blurted on autopilot, just in case- and then felt worse when their smiles slipped and turned into confusion. “Sorry,” he said again, apologizing for apologizing that time, oh God _what the fuck was wrong with him-_ “I just meant… it’s boring. Wasn’t saying you wouldn’t, you know, ‘get it.’”

The team were now all looking thoroughly confused. “We didn’t think you were saying that, Tony,” Steve told him, frowning a little. “Are you-“

“Just tired,” he said with a smile before Steve could even bother to ask him what was wrong, “sorry, I’ll just… I’ll see you all back home, yeah? Have fun.”

And then Tony Stark, Iron Man, so-called fucking superhero, turned and pretty much ran from the God Damned building.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

As soon as he got home, he marched into his workshop and yanked open the store room in the corner of the room that contained all his suits, all his half-finished gauntlet designs, and all the schematics that Tony had been sketching out before he’d been taken.

He wasn’t going to just sit here and watch his life slip away from him because of some stupid HYDRA conditioning. If Bucky could break out of it, so could he. Exposure therapy. That had to work. Or at least, he was going to make it work. The brain automatically took the path of least resistance. And Tony was the most stubborn, resisting bastard his brain knew- it’d just open his memories back up in order to alleviate the agonizing pain.

Hopefully.

Looking up at the red and gold armour in front of him, he clenched his teeth together and ignored the searing pain that flared up. “JARVIS,” he commanded, “pull up the framework of the suit, please.”

“Sir, I strongly suggest that you do not-“

“Not up for debate,” Tony snapped, “pull them up.”

A second later, and he was looking at the separate parts and mechanics of the Iron Man suit. From a scientific point of view, he saw how it all worked, and as he pushed through the horrible throb at the back of his eyes, he almost managed to piece a few of the bits of information together. But as soon as he looked away and attempted to remember it, the knowledge slipped away. He cursed loudly and then looked back, starting again.

All he had to do was break through. Then it’d all be fine.

Twenty minutes in, however, and nothing had happened aside from a few episodes of vomiting. He kept going though; working through the pain, but coming up blank each and every time. He tried analysing the schematics; tried to run through a segment of the code, but no matter how hard he tried to hold onto the information he absorbed, it refused. The memories were well and truly hidden from him, and angry tears slipped from his eyes as he tore the stupid bits of paper apart and then shoved them into the trash. He felt sick to his stomach. His head had never hurt more in his entire life, and he was completely fucking exhausted.

He couldn’t do this. Nothing was working, and it was going to cost him everything.

And then, of course, to make things worse, Steve caught him.

“What the Goddamn hell?” Tony jerked from where he was sat on the floor, turning his eyes away from the gauntlet in his lap and over to Steve, stood behind him with a look of horror etched onto his face, “Tony, what are you _doing?”_

He blinked and scrambled up to his feet, unable to hold back the gasp of pain that the movement brought. He was close to throwing up again. “Cognitive exposure,” he said with a wave of his hand, “just made it up now, seeing if it-“

“Tony, dammit, you shouldn’t be looking at that stuff!” Steve grabbed his arm and tugged him out of the store cupboard, shutting it with a click before turning back to him. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need to see a doctor?”

Tony wanted to roll his eyes, but he didn’t trust himself not to puke. “Fucking relax,” he snapped, “I’m fine. Didn’t work anyway, so I’m gonna have to get back to work. Gotta make everyone a new… thing.”

“No,” Steve said, and Tony stopped, eyeing him with a glare. “Tony, you have got to rest. You haven’t slept in days.”

 _Weak, he thinks you’re weak._ “I can look after myself, thank you Rogers,” he snapped, “your filtration systems need an update, and if you’re going to be in Montreal without me then I need to-“ he waved a hand absently, pushing past him, “need to make sure none of you die, you know?”

He felt Steve’s eyes on him as he sat himself down on his desk and took a steadying breath, pulling open one of his drawers. He was sure there was a bottle of whiskey stuffed in there somewhere which might help ease the complete agony that his head was currently in.

He eventually located the bottle, half-empty and sort of gross, really, but he swallowed a large mouthful anyway and then opened up his screens, pointedly ignoring Steve as the other man stared at him. Eventually though, it got too much, and he turned enquiringly. “Are you going to do that for the rest of the night?”

Steve’s eyes were sad. “You don’t have to do this,” he said, voice quiet, “Tony-“

“Go away, Steve,” he snapped, suddenly completely furious. Who was Steve to say what he did and didn’t have to fucking do? He had no idea- his place on the team was a sure fucking thing. He was their captain, their rock. There was no replacing _him_. “just fucking leave.”

 

Eventually, after another ten seconds or so, Steve did.

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Tony spent another two days after that awake, building and building and building anything that the team could possibly find useful.

He had to. This was all he had left now. His ideas. He was an asshole and he pissed everyone off and without the Iron Man suit there was a shockingly low number of things that Tony had going for him, but even with all that, he still had his inventions. He built training programs for the whole team, specified for them. Welded a few new plates for Bucky’s arm to increase dexterity. Redesigned Steve’s suit with stronger fibres that absorbed impact better.

He was useful. He stayed out of their way, but he stayed useful, and that was enough.

Except for the fact that every time he brought one of the team a new gift, they looked less and less happy each time. They started to frown- ask him if he was okay, which wasn’t the fucking plan. They told him to slow down, which just made everything worse. They thought he couldn’t handle it. Or maybe they just didn’t like feeling so indebted to him, seeing as they were already planning about how best to tell him he was gonna be benched permanently. Rhodey had been with them on another mission, this one in Florida, and once again, he’d done a fucking terrific job. Of course he had. It was Rhodey- he wouldn’t do anything less.

Meanwhile, Tony had locked himself in his lab and gotten piss-drunk. Because that was the sort of hero _he_ was.

Eventually, when Steve downright refused to accept the latest suit Tony had made him and then finished by yelling at Tony to stop being such a goddamn idiot, Tony had had enough. They were getting sick of him even when he was doing his best to give them what he wanted, and it was only a matter of time before they sat him down and told him that they needed him gone. He just knew it. Maybe some would call it a product of his sleep-deprived self hatred, but he didn’t fucking care. The Avengers were all he had, and whether they hated him or not, _he couldn’t lose them._

Exposure hadn’t worked. Now, Tony’s next option was muscle memory.

The roof of the tower was brisk with wind, and he shivered as he glared at the suit that was stood on the tower. It hurt to look at, but he’d almost gotten used to the pain by that point. He could get through it pretty easily now.

Muscle memory. Like amnesiacs that still remembered how to drive cars or shoot a hoop correctly. Flying the suit was intrinsic to him. He could do this. And then, maybe he could get to stay on the team. He just needed Iron Man back.

“JARVIS,” he commanded as he shut his eyes and stepped into the suit, “put me fifteen feet in the air.”

“Sir, please-“ JARVIS started, the same anxious tone he had been speaking in ever since Tony had arrived on the roof, but Tony just cut in to whatever he was about to say with a swift slash of his hand.

 _“Put me fifteen feet in the air_ , and then give me the controls. Understood?”

The AI remained silent for a moment, before there was a flat, “understood.” Tony nodded to himself, feeling the pain behind his eyes when he tried to remember how to get the repulsors to fire up. Nothing was coming to him… yet. It would. Once he was in the air and he didn’t have a choice, it would.

JARVIS lifted him off the ground gently, the boots firing up. He’d locked the joints, which was good, otherwise his knees would have buckled under the force. God, he really had forgotten every single damn thing, huh?

“Altitude reached,” JARVIS told him, “releasing controls in three, two, one-“

And then, without warning, Tony shot an extra twenty feet into the air. He yelled in surprise, unaware that he’d even been commanding the suit to do such a thing- maybe it was about body posture, except he still couldn’t fucking remember, shit, he was forty feet up now and counting, how the goddamn hell did he pilot this thing-

“Sir, requesting permission to-“

“Denied,” he hissed, because _he could do it,_ he could, he just had to- bend? Twist? Unwilling to move any further up into the air, he tucked his knees up and then rolled his body back around, seeing if it would change his direction, and then grinning in satisfaction when it did. He stopped flying upward for a second, hovering in midair.

And then the boots fired back up, sending him headfirst back toward the roof.

He looked with wide eyes at the oncoming concrete, hands going out to try and blast the repulsors to life, but at that moment his head throbbed in total, blinding agony and he could hardly even see, let alone goddamn work the thing out. He yelled in panic, limbs flailing out as he propelled into the tower at a speed faster than your average sports car. The impact when he hit the roof was blunt and brutal, and he gasped in pain, feeling the floor concave under the armour’s weight. He couldn’t even remember how to land properly, or break his fall.

Instead, he plummeted through three floors of the Avengers tower, feeling each impact as it bruised against his battered, exhausted body. Something thumped painfully against his head on the way down, and suddenly there was a dull buzzing in his ears, the world exploding into fuzzy light. He thought that he’d stopped moving by that point. Rubble bounced and boinked off the metal, and he could feel his arm sat at a funny angle up above his head.

The last thought that crossed his mind before blacking out was: _‘well, that was fucking mortifying’._

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

Someone was saying his name, blurred and distant through the fog in his head. There was a jerk against his shoulder and it hurt, then a second later a horrible bright light as the faceplate got ripped off. “-Tony, Tony, Jesus fucking Christ, can you hear me? Tony, oh God, what happened? What did you do?”

Tony couldn’t really see the figure. His head was hurting so, so much. But it was blonde and there were blue eyes and his touch felt like home, and he just wanted the person that all of that belonged to to tell him everything was going to be okay. Steve always made things better. It was part of the reason Tony loved him so damn much.

“Please don’t kick me off the team,” he muttered, shutting his eyes, “please, I can still be useful, I just… try this again, few more times, I’ll get… it. I’ll… it. Promise. Promise I will, Steve, please-“

“What?” Steve said in bewilderment, and then there were more faces, concerned, yelling, and he blinked and he was somewhere else, shit, how had that happened? Hospital. White. Heart monitor. Was he dying?

“You’re going to be fine,” Bruce, Bruce with the curly hair and the sad eyes said, “you’ve been concussed pretty badly, but you’re going to be okay.”

“Japanese,” he blurted, watching the way the other man frowned, “I can… Japanese. Mandarin. Spanish, French, some Swahili. I’ll learn some more. I will, I swear, don’t kick me off.”

He heard Bruce say his name, but then next time he looked up it was Bucky and Natasha and Clint there with him, all of them talking in low voices by his bedside. He must have fallen asleep. When? Where was he? “I can make your arm better,” he said, looking at the shiny metal, “I’ll make it… good, the best, even if I’m not Iron Man I can still…” He couldn’t think of the word and it plagued him, he was supposed to be good at that and he couldn’t even-

“Asset,” he blurted out as soon as the word came to him, but by that time those three had moved and instead it was Steve again, sat in a chair by Tony’s said and letting his fingers linger faintly against Tony’s hand. It felt nice.

Steve’s head jerked up at Tony’s voice. “What?” He asked, voice throaty.

“Asset,” Tony said again, “I…. please, Steve? Please. Don’t leave.” God, none of the words were fucking coming out right and he knew it, they must all be laughing at him so goddamned hard right now-

But Steve just held onto his hand tighter and then shook his head vehemently, his face sad and pained. “I promise,” he whispered, “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

 

 

 

_

 

 

 

 

The next time he woke up, he felt a little more like himself. Mainly because his head was fucking throbbing, and he could think in a clear train of coherent thoughts, which was nice.

He wasn’t sure how long it had been. Once more, he couldn’t remember much. Falling, he does recall. There were…. The team, they’d all been there. He’d said-

Uh oh.

Looking nervously around him, he counted out each one of the team, all perched on various chairs, laps, or straight up just sleeping on the floor in Clint’s case. Closest to him was Steve, his head laid uncomfortably against the side of Tony’s bed as his hand still remained clasped loosely around Tony’s. On his other side was Bucky, Natasha nestled in a ball under his neck and resting quietly. Bruce and Thor were somehow managing to balance on one single chair in the corner of the room- Tony was pretty sure that Thor was straight up sleep-squatting in order to make room for Bruce.

He couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said to them all. But he remembered the way that they’d all looked at him when he had. Jesus- if he wasn’t so knocked up on morphine and totally aware that he’d wake the whole team up as soon as he moved, he’d have already started running by now. But, with that option currently unavailable, he knew there was only one other option, and that was to just deal with the fallout. 

So he cleared his throat and winced. “Well- this is awkward.”

Like a gun had gone off, the entire room awoke. Steve’s head jolted upward, and Natasha did the same. Clint, with a snuffed-out snore, lifted his head off the floor, and both Bruce and Thor nearly fell on their asses as they were startled awake.

He felt the gaze of the entire team of Avengers settle on him, and felt incredibly small. He looked down at his lap. “Look,” he began, but Steve cut him off with a sharp shake of his head.

“You are so, so stupid,” he said, voice cracked and wet, and Tony didn’t want to look up. He was terrified, because he knew what was coming. He’d failed. And in the process of his failure, he’d managed to wreck a dozen floors of the tower and send the team into a panic. If that hadn’t secured his dismissal from the team, he wasn’t sure what would.

“You are the heart and soul of this team, Tony,” Steve declared, which- okay, he hadn’t been expecting, “without you, you know where we’d be?”

“Me and Clint would still be working in SHIELD,” Natasha said quietly, looking over at him with tired eyes, “living in barracks, never knowing who we could trust. My room was ten square feet. I didn’t know what family even felt like. Not until you gave me one.”

Tony looked at her, but her eyes didn’t waver. It was him who broke the contact, instead turning to Bucky as he cleared his throat. “I’d, uh- probably be dead,” he admitted quietly, earnestly, “you were the one who tracked me down, remember? Told Steve where to go find me. Then you spent… you spent so much time working on a way to fix up my head, reverse what HYDRA had done. You gave me hope, Tony. That…” Bucky shook his head and looked away, “that was something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.”

“I’d still be trying to evade the military at every corner,” Bruce piped up, “it was your team of lawyers that managed to get them to back off. You gave me freedom and peace of mind. I feel like I never really thanked you enough for that.”

Tony realised his hands were shaking, and Steve gently squeezed down on them. “You changed our Goddamned lives,” Steve told him, “you gave me a home, showed me what it felt like to not struggle alone. You stay up to watch gardening programs that I know you hate, just because you want to keep me company when I couldn’t sleep. You care about people _so much_ , Tony. Without you, we would have fallen to bits a long time ago.” His face twisted in pain and he bit his lip. “Why would you think that we would ever, _ever_ kick you off the team? Stop being your friends? Iron Man is… it’s fucking irrelevant, Tony. It’s meaningless. You, on the other hand? You’re irreplaceable.”

Tony swallowed, feeling something sting the back of his eyes as he looked out of the window. He shrugged. “I’m really not,” he muttered, “you’ve got Rhodey for missions. SHIELD labs for designs. The Tower is yours- you all own equal shares. I… God, I’m just a fucking asshole.” He laughed miserably, feeling a lump form in his throat as his breath caught. “What the hell would you even want me to stay around for, let’s be honest. I’m stubborn and rude and I don’t know how to maintain any of my fucking relationships.”

The room was silent. But then he heard Thor cough, in his usual loud manner. “Well I think you’re quick-witted and strong-willed and ready to fight anyone who wrongs you or others,” he said simply. “They’re the traits of a man I would be happy to die for in battle.”

“I think you’re a fucking asshole, yeah,” Bucky said, and something horrible clenched down over Tony’s heart until he added, “and it’s the only thing that kept me sane, some days. You never walked on eggshells ‘round me. You gave as good as you got, teased and made fun of me and brought me outta my own head. If you hadn’t treated me like I was any other human, I would never have actually believed I was.”

“Don’t you get it?” Clint asked, sitting up off the floor and waving his hands around him, “look at all of us, Tony. A collection of freaks and assholes, so emotionally stunted that our therapists need therapy after dealing with us. None of us ever in a million years believed that we’d be able to find a home somewhere. Be able to find people that we could call family. But you made it possible. You worked for it when we didn’t, and you looked after us in ways that we had no idea about until months later, because you just never felt the need to mention any of it. And you could never get the memories of Iron Man back, they could be lost forever- but you’d still be the founding Avenger. You’d still be the man who didn’t give up on a bunch of psycho losers that the world called heroes.” Clint pulled a face, lying back down. “Jheeze, that was emotional. I don’t want anyone to look at me for at least three hours while I recover from that.”

Tony couldn’t help it; he snorted. “Getting soft, Clint?” He asked weakly, “someone call TMZ.”

From the floor, Clint shot him the bird. “We love you, man,” he said bluntly, “and I dunno what that sleep deprived asshole inside your head has been telling you these past few days, but he’s wrong. You aren’t gonna get rid of us that easy.”

A murmur of agreement flew around the cramped hospital room, and Tony wanted to say something, but he found he couldn’t speak. His throat was tight and his eyes stung, and God, he felt close to a breakdown.

They cared. For whatever reason, they… they really did.

“Guys,” Steve said, looking up at the team with slightly pink cheeks, “can I- uh- get a moment alone with Tony, please?”

He paused, looking over to the man as he sat on the chair and pointedly kept his eyes on the others. They all glanced somewhat smugly to eachother, but began to rise all the same. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll give you some space,” Bucky said with an exaggerated wink. “We just wanted to be there when you woke up, so we could set that dumb head’a yours straight. Now we done that, we’re probably gonna go back home for the night. That okay?” He asked, and when Tony nodded, Bucky clapped him delicately on his good shoulder and smiled, leaning down a little. “Tell him to stop rambling if he starts going off on a tangent, and don’t let him change the subject,” he whispered into Tony’s ear, which Steve obviously heard but chose to ignore. Tony just looked at him curiously, head cocked as Bucky saluted and strolled out of the door. The rest of the team followed with goodbye pats and kisses to the forehead, until it was just Steve and Tony, alone in the room.

He glanced nervously over to the other man. Steve still hadn’t met his eyes yet.

“You scared me out of my mind, Tony,” he said in the end, voice quiet, and Tony’s heart sank. Oh. It was gonna be one of _those_ talks.

“It was stupid,” Tony said, embarrassment pooling in his gut, “I should have known better, it won’t happen again-“

“No, I’m… I don’t mean it like it was just you making a dumb decision on the field- although it was dumb. Very, very dumb,” Steve said with an unhappy intake of breath, finally looking Tony in the eye, “but it’s not about that. This is about you being hurt and me… me being hurt because you’re in pain. Because that’s always what happens. You get injured and I just… I go nuts, okay,  I _hate_ seeing you like that, it scares me because I can’t lose you. I can’t, Tony. You matter more to me than… than pretty much anyone, okay? And when I think about you just- just stewing in all those horrible untrue thoughts- doing this just to try and prove yourself, God, I just want to punch myself in the face for not doing something sooner.”

“It’s not your job to try and soothe my ego, Steve,” Tony said with a self-deprecating smile, “this was just me and- uh- all of my dumb issues manifesting themselves in equally dumb ways. You couldn’t have done much.”

Steve sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “You’re not getting what I’m trying to say here,” he muttered, pursing his lips before taking a deep breath and straightening his back like he was preparing for war. When he looked at Tony, though, his eyes were sure. Resolute. “I’m in love with you,” he said simply, “and I have been for a long time.”

Tony’s brain short-circuited. That felt like a common occurrence, these days.

Steve did _what now?_

“You,” he tried, before stopping and re-evaluating, making sure that he hadn’t just hallucinated that, “you love me.”

Steve fast seemed to be running out of confidence, because he was getting smaller and smaller in his seat. “Yes,” he confirmed, “and I know- I get if you don’t feel the same, that’s fine and we don’t have to change anything, I just thought… you have such a low opinion of yourself, but if you saw yourself through my eyes you’d see that I’d never _ever_ think of you as expendable. Not in a million years.” He looked at Tony with a sad smile, before looking back down into his lap again. “But like I said- if you don’t reciprocate, that’s completely… I understand, we can just-“

“Steve, I’ve been in love with you since I was twelve,” Tony told him blankly, squinting at him even though it hurt like a bitch, “I kind of thought you knew, if I’m being honest.”

Steve froze. “Define what you mean by ‘love’,” he asked cautiously.

“Uhhhhh,” Tony felt his cheeks heat, but hell, he’d already blurted out half of his deepest secrets to the team in a concussion-fuelled haze, he may as well just let this one out. “I daydream a lot about holding your hand. About running my fingers through your hair. I wish I could wake up with you all the time. You make me happy in a way that no one else can. I… there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do to see you smile? That’s – uh, that’s what it is, really.”

When he looked across at Steve, the man was smiling like a single star in a black sky, lighting up the world. “That’s how I feel too,” he whispered, leaning forward, “that’s…yeah.”

Tony laughed nervously. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Both of them looked at one another for a few seconds, disbelief in both of their eyes. Tony wondered whether he was still being affected by the concussion. Last time he’d been coherent, he was convinced Steve was going to kick him off the team for good, and now… now he was saying that he loved him? It hardly even computed properly in his brain.

But Steve was gazing at him, soft and relieved and with that indiscernible emotion that he previously hadn’t been able to pinpoint, but was now quite clear: adoration. That… how had Tony not noticed that before? Steve didn’t look at anyone else like that. Tony was supposed to be _good_ at this sort of thing, dammit-

Steve’s fingers curled nervously around Tony’s, and all other thoughts swiftly dropped out of his head as he looked down at their joined hands. “Is this okay?” He whispered nervously, and Tony could only laugh in disbelief, squeezing their hands together and tugging him forward with a huff.

“Come here, lie down with me,” he said through a giggle, “maybe it’s the morphine fucking with my sense of spatial awareness, but I think we can both fit on this thing, right?”

Steve’s cheeks were crimson as he let Tony tug him forward, standing up and then shuffling awkwardly onto the bed. “We might break it,” he warned, but lay down by Tony’s side all the same, fingers stroking lightly through Tony’s hair and pushing it off his face.

Tony just shrugged. “I’ll tell ‘em to bill me,” he responded, before burying his head into Steve’s chest and shutting his eyes. Steve was warm and comforting and familiar, and Tony was so, so glad that he hadn’t lost this. Not that there had ever been the risk of that happening in the first place, apparently, but still. It was nice to come to the realisation that Steve was, for some reason, a sure thing.

“Please don’t ever think that we don’t care about the person under the suit,” Steve murmured into his hair, arms wrapping protectively around Tony’s waist, “we do. More than you could possibly know. You’re family, Tony.”

Luckily, Tony’s face was obscured by Steve’s chest, so no one saw the way his cheeks warmed up and his eyes pricked. Family. He’d always thought he was the only one who’d considered the Avengers that way- but here Steve was, saying it was reciprocated. Tony wasn’t used to people caring about him like that. Not even his real family had done that before. This was new, and scary, and-

And nice. Really, really fucking nice.

He took a breath and raised his courage, lifting his head up and then tilting Steve’s head downward with his hand. Slowly, he pressed a small and almost nervous kiss against Steve’s mouth. Steve smiled against it and kissed back, his lips warm and soft and strangely familiar, despite the fact Tony had never done this before. It felt like this was normal, like it was simply meant to be.

“I love you,” Steve said again, and Tony giggled when Steve broke away to plant a gentle kiss against the tip of his nose, “I’ll keep saying that. Every day, if I have to.”

How the goddamn hell Tony had managed to make someone like Steve Rogers fall for him, he had no idea. “I love you too,” Tony replied earnestly, fingers fiddling nervously with Steve’s collar, “I’m sorry that I’m such a mess. I’ll try and be better in future.”

Steve closed his hands delicately around Tony’s wrists, bringing his hands up to kiss his palms. “Don’t be sorry,” he murmured, “just be open. Talk to us. We’re all messy, Tony, but we stick around for one another. You’d do the same for us. Don’t treat yourself like you’re less, okay?”

Tony bit his lip, but nodded at him all the same, cupping his hand against Steve’s jaw. It felt like any moment now, he was going to wake up and it’d all be over. He’d be alone again, just waiting for the team to snap and realise that he just wasn’t worth their time.

He figured he probably had a little way to go yet, with the whole ‘understand your value’ schtick. But… you know, maybe Steve would help with that. If he kept kissing Tony in the way he was, Tony was pretty sure his ego would be the size of a planet by the end of the night.

They broke away after another few seconds, looking at one another with shared smiles and rosy cheeks. Tony traced the side of his face with a finger, thinking of a dozen different futures that had just popped into his head. “You think this is gonna work?” He whispered, nervous as the words fell from his lips.

But Steve just smiled, his hand squeezing against Tony’s waist. He knocked their foreheads together, skin on skin, heartbeat to heartbeat.

“I know it will.”

 

 

 

 

**EPILOGUE**

 

 

 

 

Seven days later, and the two of them were simply sat curled up with one another on the couch when it happened. Tony had just been watching the reruns on TV, Steve reading War of the Worlds next to him, when his mind ended up wandering over to the new coding updates that he had yet to apply to the new suit he’d been working on. They were fairly simple, really, but it’d help to regulate the stabilization of the repulsors even when working on emergency power. He’d probably need to rewire the thrusters a little, but he could probably get it done tonight if he concentrated-

And then, as the realization hit him, he sprang vertically off the couch and landed on his feet with his hands raised. Steve looked up at him in confusion, but Tony just whooped, fist pumping the air. “I remember!” He yelled, looking at the other man in ecstasy, “I remember the suits! Steve! I remember them!”

He jumped where he was stood, euphoric with relief, and then heard Steve’s responding laugh and cheer as he stood up too and pulled Tony into a celebratory hug. “Oh sweetheart,” he began, because Steve called him _sweetheart_ now, “I’m so happy for you!”

Tony grasped him tightly, tears of joy springing to his eyes as he laughed. “Fucking _Christ_ ,” he breathed, continuing to bounce up and down on the balls of his feet, “fucking…. God, I’ve got so much to do, so many upgrades I need to make- oh, do I get to come with you to Montreal now? Shit, fuck, I remember!” He pulled away a fraction and then kissed Steve messily, laughing halfway through. “Thank you. I love you.”

Steve’s brow creased a little. “I love you too, but what are you thanking me for?”

Tony broke away and then turned, beginning to run for the direction of his workshop, his suits, oh God _he’d missed his suits_ \- “for being you!” He called out behind him with a cackle, “it probably helped, I dunno! I’ve gotta go take my baby for a spin, I’ll see you in a few hours!”

He rushed away, jumping in the air and tapping his heels together joyously as he did so. Behind him, he heard Steve’s laughter, and for the first time in weeks, Tony couldn’t think of a single damned thing that would make him happier.

He had it all right here.


End file.
